Theft, intimidation and nuisance: entrepreneurs in the Old Center of Emmen are fed up with it. Placards with the warning are hanging in more and more shop windows ‘Attention thieves, you are being monitored’. It should deter potential perpetrators.
Jans Zwiers of Voetbalshop.nl has seen the incidents increasing for years. “It has really been an increasing trend, especially in the last three years. Every day a group comes in, and you have to be on top of it. Sometimes we run after them, but you don’t know what they have in their pockets. So we don’t do that anymore. We show that we are the boss in our own store.” Because Zwiers and his colleagues have been confronted with a big mouth more than once.
His fellow entrepreneur Jan van Peer from the bed shop of the same name adds: “There is little to be bought at my store, but the cushions outside are simply taken. Four weeks ago we followed a man who had been haunting the center for weeks. He groped a fellow entrepreneur, stole from a jeweler and eventually walked around with a backpack full of clothes and shoes. We caught him and handed him over to the police. It turned out to be a Georgian man. are.”
Yet the man was released two hours later, to the frustration of the shopkeepers. That cannot be explained, according to Zwiers and Van Peer. The fact that they sometimes even run after it has almost become normal for them. “It’s just that injustice,” said Van Peer. “I can’t stand it. So I’m going to go after them, even if they don’t even steal from me.”
Van Peer and Zwiers point to the influx of asylum seekers. A shuttle bus leaves from Emmen station to the asylum center in Ter Apel. “Some linger here,” says Van Peer. “They are often safe havens, and they fan out across the center. Then the misery begins.” It happens every week, sometimes every day, says Zwiers.
According to Zwiers, the nuisance is sometimes downright intimidating. “I heard one of the colleagues in the store shout: stand still with that ball. I chased it and I managed to bring it back. But then the thief approaches the police, who just happened to be driving by. Because I was chasing him. I was talking to those officers, while that guy made shooting movements in my direction with his fingers.”
Entrepreneurs try to defend themselves with cameras, group apps in which photos of suspicious people are shared and now those striking warning posters.
Van Peer’s wife, Agnieszka, who works in a clothing store, also experiences a feeling of insecurity. “Especially if you are alone in the store. Sometimes you even run outside to ask for help. Then there are three people in front of you who are watching you. That just feels threatening.”
Emmen Mayor Eric van Oosterhout understands the frustrations. “We recently sat down with the interest group Het Oude Centrum and the police. It was agreed that the police and supervisors will be present more often.” Collaboration with the Platform for Safe Entrepreneurship is also being considered, which offers training and advice to entrepreneurs. Van Oosterhout calls on retailers to continue reporting crimes. “Only then will we get a complete picture of the problem.”
Yet the mayor sees the core of the solution elsewhere. “The situation in the old center and also the station area and Nieuw-Weerdinge is related to national issues surrounding asylum reception. As long as this is not better regulated, additional police and enforcement efforts will remain necessary.”